Museum Art Recreation Challenge Part 5--Behind the Scenes

 This is a collection of the stories and ridiculous outtakes behind the more polished and "official" recreation photos. Some of these have fun stories, some of them are just funny pictures.

Can't remember the name of this one off the top of my head, and I'm too lazy to go check my other post.  Not really an outtake, just a reimagined version.  The original has Mary reverent and awestruck, but, to be honest, I always imagined joy.

The Lady of Shalott

This was shot in roughly two and half feet of snow to the side of our house in March.  Brenna insisted on taking off her boots to sit inside of the kayak...I was in snowshoes, stomping over the snow, and just couldn't get the right angle--so I sat down. Big mistake...I can't get back up because I can't get my weight centered over my snowshoes and just keep sinking deeper into the snow. I finally yell for Brenna to come help me.  Now, if you remember, she inexplicably has no boots on--so she inches forward, attempting to reach her boots which are sitting just at arm's reach so they weren't on camera.  She overreaches, overbalances, and falls out of the boat, still barefoot but now barefoot in two and a half feet of snow.  She starts squawking in indignation and flapping hysterically on the nose of the kayak.  I'm still floundering about, laughing my quickly freezing butt off, hoping I don't sink low enough to suffocate.  Several neighbors pass by and watch us struggle for a few minutes, but thanks to Covid 19 and social distancing, we are left to our doom without so much as an insincere "Need help?"

Finally I order Brenna inside because her boots are now full of snow and her feet are still bare and there are corpses with better circulation than her.  I manage to dig the packed ice out of the snowshoe fastener and kick them off, post-holing my way back to the porch with the boat, which luckily glides right over the snow.

I was promptly informed there would be no more boat pictures unless they were on the porch.

2nd Attempt at Lady of Shalott

Around April we had an enormous seasonal pond on the path behind our house, so we decided to take advantage of the conveniently close water to reshoot the one picture we needed water for.  It turned out nicely, even though the minions were grumpy about hauling the kayak out for my use instead of theirs (they had been kayaking on it the day before) and, as you can see, her ladyship was not super pleased to be conscripted into carrying it back.  At least she had her boots on this time.

The Thinker

Naturally, this is the outtake for Rodin's famous pensive statue.  No further explanation necessary.

Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses

This was hands down the most technically difficult recreation.  I don't own a huge mirror, so we had to improvise.  It was built in layers.  The "mirror" is a grey sheet pinned to the right shape, with Ken playing Odysseus and thumb-tacked in place.  Then we add Brenna, face against the wall, because she has the closest hair to match Aeryn.  They have to be positioned exactly right.  Aeryn isn't tall enough, so she has to sit on books (including, fittingly, Bulfinch's Mythology).  More books have to be stacked to get the "frame" to the right height, but now Jane saves the day by wedging herself at butt-height between her sisters to hold the hula hoop in place.  It took probably an hour to get everything set up for the 1 minute of photo-shoot. Blergh.  We took it easier after this.

Judith and the Head of Holofernes

No Leahs were harmed in any of the beheading photos.  We actually did both this and Salome and the Head of John the Baptist in the same day because she didn't want the beard drawn on more than once (and I didn't want to waste the rest of my eyeliner on her mustache).  

Pandora

This is one of my favorites of Echo just because of the sociopathic delight on her face as she opens this box of plagues.  The smoke was made by a candle we lit and shoved in the box.

The Creation of Adam

Bren and Leah are the masterminds between this outtake, which they dubbed The Passing of the Remote.  God might have a couple of words with them later, but I laughed.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

No real story behind this one, just two of the minions being dorks.

George Washington Crossing the Delaware

As threatened by Brenna, the girls would only pose with the boat on the porch.  It took the whole crew to stage this, and they were all too happy to threaten their General, who had been very imperious throughout the whole ordeal.

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

More eyeliner was sacrificed for everyone's Van Dyke, and then Echo got her Zombie on. 

Venus de Milo

Leah objected at first to being caked with makeup and powder--and there was sooooooo much of it--but she enjoyed getting to scream about her missing arms.

Girl at Mirror

This was a fun reinterpretation of the Rockwell painting where the little girl is reading about ancient warrior queens and has her sword close at hand. I actually like this version more than the original.

It took some more photo-trickery to get this shot.  I dressed some sisters as dementors and had them crouch uncomfortably for a long time to get the picture I wanted.  They wanted to eat, so they complied.

Lady with an Ermine

In our recreation we ultimately used a white fox because it just looked better, but originally Brenna made a weasel out of one of Rick's socks.  The weasel, played here by Brenna, didn't make the final cut but it made a great outtake.

Egypt

Our cat Bat decided to make himself at home in the pyramids.  

Two diva Egyptians.  

Echo got tired of waiting for her turn to pose, so she strolled in and refused to move until she got her picture taken.

Salome and the Head of John the Baptist

This was one of my favorite shoots.  We achieved the headless look by hanging a backdrop of black velvet and then covering Leah with black velvet from the shoulders down, with Bren clutching her hair just out of frame.  The original pic took just a few minutes, and we had so much more fun with the outtakes.  My two drama queens had the rest of us dying.

Leah, rocking her beard. As she said, "I'm FABULOUS."

The Favorite

She's just so darn cute.  I love this picture.  Any of my girls would love to hold a devil dog.  The demon was built out of a large plush wolf, with cardboard antlers and an extra mouth of felt hot-glued together and pinned to the muzzle.

Fred the Pony

This was our pony, Fred, built from a furniture box specifically for Prayer at Valley Forge.  Somebody joked about using a stickhorse, but I was feeling super extra. "B****, please, you want a horse?  I'll show you a horse." I freehanded the horse, taped it together, and airbrushed him to a dapple grey.  His saddle and bridle are made from cardboard and strips of fake leathery material, with a saddle blanket made from one of my pillow cases.  I added some details and a yarn tail, and Voila!  Fred lived under the stairs for a while.  I finally decided it was time to get rid of him but the girls intervened and now he's living his best life hanging above Leah's bed.

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey

What?  We aren't trying to kill you.  What are you talking about? *whistles nonchalantly*

Ophelia

Jane was such a good sport, hanging out in the warm tub fully dressed for probably twenty minutes without complaint.  The wet dress was ridiculously heavy when she finally stood up. It took every piece of loose green material in my house (two towels, an Army-issue wool blanket, and a wool cloak) to make the background, along with my Christmas greenery, some spinning wool, and some quickly gathered sticks.  

The Birth of Venus

Hands down my very favorite outtake.  This was another detailed set up, with a lot of parts and people to arrange. The censor blocks were Bren's idea.  

I freaking love my kids. They're hilarious.  I'm so grateful to have had this opportunity with them, and though they probably won't remember much of it besides the living room being covered with piles of fabric and me yelling incoherently, it was still worth it. At any rate, this adventure we started back in February is *finally* over.  Thanks for taking it with us.

Fin.

Museum Art Recreation Challenge Part 4--The End.

Triple Self Portrait

Oils

Norman Rockwell, 1960

Rockwell was an American illustrator, most famous for his idealized depictions of American culture and life.  His paintings were featured in Coca Cola ads and on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post for over five decades; a prolific artist, he has over 4,000 known original works to his credit.  Due to the often sweet and sentimental representations of everyday life in his art, many critics dismissed his work as kitschy and wasted talent.  Rockwell didn't mind, always referring to himself as an illustrator, not a painter. Later in life he did touch on more serious subjects, as shown in his stunning illustration of Ruby Bridges being escorted to a school during segregation, fittingly titled, The Problem We All Live With.

His humble, whimsical sense of humor is well captured by his Triple Self Portrait, illustrated by him as the cover for his biography.  The painting shows the artist idealizing and distorting his own appearance, making himself appear more noble than he really is.  There are small pictures in the corner of his canvas, self-portraits by other famous artists (Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Durer, Picasso) that had influenced Rockwell's work.  The helmet on his easel is a reminder not to be taken in by appearances--he had bought it in Paris, assuming it to be an ancient Greek or Roman artifact...only to discover that all French firemen wore the same helmet.

The Old Guitarist

Oils

Pablo Picasso, 1904

This is another piece from his Blue Period.  Often his subjects at this time were prostitutes, beggars, and the other overlooked people of the streets of Barcelona, Spain.  This particular painting depicts an old, blind street musician.  It exhibits the defining characteristics of this period in Picasso's career--a melancholy mood amplified by not just the expression of the subject but also the cool, monochromatic greys and blues.  Many historians, interpret this painting as representing the solitary life and struggles of an artist--a life devoted to art sustains and fulfills the artist, and yet the artist is isolated from society while simultaneously requiring the artist to depend on society to survive.  From this perspective, the painting becomes an allegory for human existence and Picasso's critique of society.

Pallas and the Centaur

Oil

Sandro Botticelli, 1482

Botticelli is an Italian Renaissance painter known for his frescoes in the Sistine Chapel as well as various paintings of the Madonna and Child.  However, he is most famous for his few mythic works, such as Primavera, The Birth of Venus, and Pallas and the Centaur.

Despite the name of the painting, there is some debate among scholars as to who the woman actually is.  The painting was originally named Camilla, an allusion to a virgin warrior and princess from Virgil's Aeneid.  Others claim it is Pallas, the Carthaginian warrior and companion to the goddess Athena (or Minerva, if you're Roman), and others say it is Athena herself. Still others say it is Florencia, the embodiment of the city of Florence.

They all agree, however, on the connections between the painting and Botticelli's patrons, the great Medici family.  The triple ring on Pallas's gown the emblem of the Medici, and the laurel crown and vine about her arms are a punning reference to Lorenzo de Medici, whose name means "of the laurel trees."

We had a few minor challenges setting this one up.  First, we had to make a centaur out of two hairy kids.  Jane took one for the team as the horse's...rump.  Second, we forged a halberd out of a tomahawk, some duct tape, and a certain infamous spear. (Yes, I know, shocking we don't own one, but don't encourage Rick.)

Girl with Basket of Ribbons

Oils

Christen Brun, 1869

Brun was a Norwegian painter that lived from 1828 to 1905.  That is the only information I can find on him, and he has only a couple of paintings accredited to him, including A Basket of Ribbons and A Turkish Girl.  What is interesting is that he shares a lot of similarities in style and subject with Guillaume Charles Brun, a French painter who loved from 1825 to 1908 and was known for his paintings of both impoverished ribbon sellers and depictions of the exotic East, namely the Middle East, Algeria, and Turkey.  Their painting styles and subjects are so similar that, added to the facts that they are contemporaries and share a name, I'm not 100% convinced they aren't the same person.  The painting is even dated to within three years for each artist.  However, I'm not an art historian, and if I can't figure it out after a generous 15 minutes of strenuous Google searching, I'm just going to let it go.

Winged Victory of Samothrace

Marble

Unknown, circa 190 B.C.

This is one of the finest examples of true Hellenistic (Ancient Greek) sculpture.  Most surviving ancient sculptures are actually Roman copies of earlier Greek statues.  Winged Victory is a representation of Nike, the Greek Goddess of--drum roll, please--victory.  The statue is a lovely piece of Greek artistry and precision, from the naturally balanced, graceful pose of the goddess to the fine drapery of her windblown clothes.  Of the surviving statue, everything is original except for her right wing, which was repaired as a mirror-copy of the left.  Scholars have various ideas of how she originally looked, though we will never know for sure--she was broken when found, and several pieces that were found nearby (including one of her arms) were either broken or lost in transit.

Proserpine

Oils

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1874.

Proserpine is the Latin name for Persephone, the goddess of spring in Greek myth who was abducted by Pluto (Hades in Greek) and held in the underworld.  Since she ate six pomegranate arils (seeds) while she was there, she had to stay with Pluto as his queen for six months in the year, and this was how the Greeks explained the changing of the seasons.  While Proserpine was with her mother, the goddess of the harvest, plants would grow and there was plenty of food; when she was in the underworld, her mother missed her terribly and in her depression the plants would wither and die.

Rossetti was a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and as such his art often had symbolic elements.  The vine in the painting, for example, symbolizes Proserpine's memory of the upper world, and the light is giving her a brief glimpse of the world she's kept from.  There's a personal element to this for Rossetti as well--he was obsessed with his model, Jane Morris, who was married and therefore as unattainable as the subject of his painting.  Like Proserpine, Jane spent summers as Rossetti's muse before returning to her husband in the fall.  Rossetti was a poet like his more famous sister, Christina; though not as well known, he often included poems with his paintings.  The sonnet for Proserpine is in the upper right corner in English and Italian.  In addition to his other works, Rossetti did eight different versions of Proserpine in different colors and media.

La Pieta (The Pity)

Marble

Michelangelo, 1498

A famous and poignant depiction of Mary holding Christ's body.  It is unique in several respects.  Mary is shown as a young woman instead of a matron of 50, and Christ's wounds are minimized as Michelangelo wanted to emphasize serenity and sanctification instead of agony and death as was common in other interpretations.

It is also unique in being the only piece of art that Michelangelo ever signed.  He heard it being attributed to someone else, so he put his own name on Mary's sash (literally--he chiseled "Michelangelo Buonarroti, a Florentine, made this" in Latin).  It suffered substantial damage in 1972 when a delusional man attacked it with a hammer; he was quickly subdued by several men, including an American sculptor, but not before the damage was done: Mary's nose and one eye were damaged, and her arm knocked off at the elbow.  After careful repair, the Pieta was reinstated at its place in St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City--this time behind bulletproof glass.

Pandora

Oils

John William Waterhouse, 1896.

This recreation is probably the most pertinent to 2020 out of all the art we have done.

The story of Pandora is a theodicy, a story that explains why things are the way they are--in this case, how evil and disease entered the world.  Prometheus, a Titan, stole fire from the gods as a gift to humankind.  Zeus punished him by staking him to a rock and having an eagle tear out his liver every day and heal overnight.  The gods' wrath, however, was not satisfied.  Hephaestus created a perfect woman and all of the gods gave her gifts and talents, the last of which was curiosity.  They named her Pandora, which means "all-giving." They sent her to earth as a bride to Epitmetheus, Prometheus's brother, and for her wedding gave her a beautiful sealed jar (often mistranslated as a box).  After some time, Pandora's curiosity got the better of her and she opened the jar.  All the evils and miasmas that could afflict humanity flowed into the world and scattered to the winds.  She closed the jar as quickly as she could, but all that remained inside was hope.

Now, because this is Greek mythology, there are a thousand variations of this story.  In some of them, Pandora aids the gods intentionally, scattering the evils from her jar.  The parallels between Greek Pandora and Christian Eve are intriguing.  I love how the further you go back into religions, the more similarities you find, almost as if we have a shared ancestral memory that has been transfigured over the millennia. 

Portrait of Anne, Emily, and Charlotte Bronte

Oils

Branwell Bronte, 1834

The Brontes were a literary family in 1830s England.  All of the children were precocious writers, creating stories and complicated histories of two fictional kingdoms.  Later, after stints as governesses, Anne and Charlotte returned home, where Emily had been keeping house for their aging father, Patrick.  Their brother, Branwell, also tried his hand at teaching, but returned home in disgrace after a scandalous affair with his employer's wife.  He fell into gambling and alcoholism, and dabbled in painting.

To provide for their family as well as satisfy their literary inclinations, the sisters turned to writing under the male pseudonyms Acton, Ellis, and Currer Bell.  After their first novels--respectively Agnes Grey, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre--were met with varying levels of success, the sisters outed themselves as female.  Anne went on to write The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Charlotte penned several more novels, including Villette, which is considered to be somewhat biographical.

Their triumph was short-lived, however, as Branwell died of tuberculosis in 1848, with Emily and Anne following within months.  Alone with her father, Charlotte continued to write until she married; she died within a year of her marriage due to pregnancy complications.  She was 39.

This portrait is interesting because Branwell had originally included himself, then painted himself out for unknown reasons.  However, as the painting ages and the paint degrades, his self-portrait has started to reappear, almost like a ghost, to take his place among his formidable sisters.

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey

Oils

Paul Delaroche, 1833

Delaroche was a realist painter who specialized in melodramatic historical paintings.  He was particularly well known for his attention to historical detail while not glorifying historical figures as was common in Romantic art at the time.

When Henry VIII died, his son, Edward VI, became king.  Edward was sickly and died at fifteen.  He declared his cousin and fellow Protestant, Lady Jane Grey, to be his heir in an attempt to prevent his Catholic sister Mary or his legally illegitimate sister Elizabeth from taking the throne.  Jane, "the Nine Days' Queen," was deposed by Mary and her supporters after only nine days on the throne.  Jane was convicted of treason.  Mary originally sought to avoid killing her cousin, but Jane's father, the Duke of Suffolk, took part in a rebellion against Mary and her intended husband, Phillip of Spain, with the unspoken intention of placing Jane back on the throne.  Mary took decisive action, executing Lady Jane, her husband Guilford Dudley (whose brother would later be romantically linked with Elizabeth I), and the Duke of Suffolk.

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicoles Tulp

Oil on Canvas

Rembrandt, 1632

A portrait of a real doctor commissioned by the Surgeon's Guild of the Netherlands, this shows Dr. Tulp, a leading anatomist, giving a lesson.  He was only allowed to do one dissection a year, and that had to be of a convicted criminal.  Due to the rarity of the event, it was treated as a special occasion with students, colleagues, and even the general public invited to watch for a fee.  The observers are all portraits of doctors, colleagues of Dr. Tulp who paid to be featured in the painting.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a painter during the Dutch Golden Age.  Unlike most artists of his era, he painted a wide variety of subjects.  He was a talented etcher, and his fame was originally because of his prints.  His paintings are very complicated ad combine a deep knowledge of his subject matter with his observations of real people and a skillful use of iconography to add layers of meaning and significance to his painting.

The Birth of Venus

Oils

Sandro Botticelli, circa 1485

This painting, one of Botticelli's most famous, depicts Venus, the Roman goddess of passionate love and beauty, being blown to land by Zephyr, the god of the west wind, after her miraculous birth from the sea. Zephyr is helped by a female deity--either Aura, a minor wind goddess, or Chloris, a flower nymph and Zephyr's wife.  The woman waiting on land for Venus is most often identified as one of the Horae (Hours), the three minor goddesses of time and season who become Venus' attendants.  Venus plays an important part in Roman mythology: in addition to her complicated personification of Roman women's greatest desirable virtues and weaknesses, Romans claimed her as an ancestor.  Venus was the mother of Aeneas, one of the princes of Troy; after the fall of the city Aeneas escaped and had many adventures, eventually landing in a new country where his descendants, Romulus and Remus, founded a city that would become one of the world's greatest empires.

Several technical aspects of the painting are worth mentioning.  Botticelli was never a realistic painter and was less concerned with anatomy than his contemporary da Vinci, and it shows in his unbalanced, slope-shouldered, anatomically improbable Venus. The proportions of the characters are off and none of them cast shadows.  The pigments have aged and darkened over the years, causing the painting to lose some of its brilliant color. 

Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima

Photo

Joe Rosenthal, 1945

Our final recreation is based on a wartime photograph from World War II.  It shows six marines from the 5th Marine Division raising a flag on Mount Suribachi, Japan, in the early part of the battle of Iwo Jima.  Three of the six went on to die in the ensuing battle.  This is one of the most iconic images of the war; it won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography and also was used as the model for the Marine Corps War Memorial in 1954.  The memorial stands by Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place of U.S. soldiers from every conflict dating back to the Civil War.

This looks like a pretty simple set up, and it was.  We went to a hill a short ways behind our house, neighbor's flag in hand, and struck a pose--and the wind, which had been gusting all day, suddenly died.  We managed to fake it by waving, but it took multiple tries to get the right shot.  Naturally, as soon as we packed it in, the wind started up again.

This is one of my favorites. I love the original. It gives me all the feels every time.  My family was Army, not Marines, but I had ancestors in every major US war; on my mother's side, the last three generations were soldiers, including her. When this photo was taken in Iwo Jima, my half-Mexican grandfather was fighting in Europe.  What a hell of a legacy we were born to as the children of warriors.

Next up, the outtakes!